In some networks, such as a wireless mesh network defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.4 family of standards, channel hopping may be used such that nodes in the network typically communicate data over a designated channel that changes on a scheduled time interval. For example, as occurs in Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) networks where a node transitions or “hops” from one channel to another on a time interval, such as 25 ms. In such networks, a message may be transmitted addressed as a broadcast message to be received by the nodes in the network. Some of the broadcast messages exceed the amount of data that can be transmitted in a single frame such that the message spans across two or more frames. In this circumstance, the message is broadcast on the same channel from start until completion, even if the broadcast overlaps with a scheduled channel transition time. As a result, receiving a broadcast message may cause a node to temporarily deviate from tuning to the scheduled channel transitions and possibly miss other messages that are transmitted on the scheduled channels.
The negative effects are amplified for networks that require each node to re-broadcast a received broadcast message to the network, as the other nodes in the network completely receive the broadcast message before determining if the broadcast message is a duplicate. Consequently, transmission of broadcast messages to the network can result in many nodes temporarily deviating from tuning to scheduled channel transitions and, as re-broadcasting occurs, unnecessarily missing other possible data transmissions in the network. What is needed is an optimization for receiving broadcast messages that diminishes unnecessary deviations from the network channel hopping schedule of the nodes.